Summary

This chapter should have given you a sense of what goes into administration for a UNIX system. Once you have your system installed, the material in this chapter will provide a good idea of what you need to do to add and delete users, and generally administer the system. Basic commands and important concepts are touched on. However, some subjects that are not considered essential for starting up and getting to know your system are not described here, but rather in the next chapter. Also, most of the commands in this chapter have many other options than those described here. If you are interested in understanding how to perform administration using a menu interface, familiarize yourself with your menu interface and its icons before attempting to perform system administration. Learn, if possible, what the underlying activities are that take place when a menu icon is used instead of the command-line interface. You may someday encounter a machine on which you have to use command-line interfaces.

The next chapter covers new topics, such as managing disk storage, and expands on previously discussed topics, such as using the UNIX file system. Once you feel comfortable with this chapter and the next, it is recommended that you obtain a System Administrator’s Guide for your particular version of UNIX. This will explain each administrative command and file format in greater detail.